Date Codes

The date coding on Zippo lighters was introduced in lateso lighters made after this date are very easy to identify. Earlier lighters are much more difficult to date accurately.

I check this out going to start with the last undated lighter as this is the easiest to date. This lighter was made between and and lighters identifiable by what is known as the "Full Stamp". The base has three lines of text and is the only uncoded version to carry the Patent Number This page contains details of how I set about dating these lighters and contains valuable information as to what to look dating. If you want to go straight to the dating guide Click Here.

This stamp was introduced in early and continued in use until The lighters within this timespan can be narrowed down into two groups, mid to mid will have a chrome plated steel case, whereas lighters from mid until late will have a chrome plated brass case In order to test this, place a magnet wrapped in cotton to avoid damage to the open lid of the lighter. As the inserts may be steel, a magnet will stick to some brass cases if placed against the body of the lighter. I now want to go back to the first lighters made after WW!! When writing this page I have used information from lighters that were engraved, at the factory, with either a date or a company logo with a specific anniversary.

I have had to research zippo individual companies to discover the date the company was formed in order to determine the year that the anniversary was celebrated. Whilst being a good guideline, this lighters by no means infallible. Companies planning an anniversary celebration would start the planning and ordering the souvenirs a lot earlier than the date of the anniversary, for this reason a lighter engravedmay have been produced in This is still evident today with many of the dated lighters.

For this reason this page should be considered as a guideline only. Lighters made before had the earlier patent number and it is the placement of this number, along with the placement of the word "ZIPPO" that can help identify the date.

Some important points to note are the shape of the "3" within this patent number, dating lighters have a round top zippo whilst other have a flat top. On the two lighters below we can see how the spacing between the letters differed over time. When trying to date these earlier lighters it is important that close attention is paid to the exact layout of all three lines. Looking at the two lighters above the red "base line" serves as a guide to the placement of the letters.

In the first the base line of the "B" intersects the two "P's" almost exactly then intersects the "M" just beyond the midpoint. In think, dating a chinese girl can second kandjbaby onlyfans the same line touches the end of the first "P" and misses the "M" completely. Throughout the rest of this page, these base lines will be used to compare the differences in the bottom dating. Another difference worthy of note is in the design of the flint wheel.

In the spring ofit was discovered that many of the lighters being returned for repair were suffering from faulty flint wheels. A decision was made not to allow any more lighters to be shipped until this fault was rectified. Experiments were made using different types of steel and different angles of cut. The result was that the zippo "cross cut" wheel was discontinued and a diagonal cut wheel was introduced.

Lighters next major difference is the hinge, between the two halves of the lighter case. Over the period tothree different hinges were used. The early lighters had a three barrel hinge, where the middle barrel was longer than the two outer barrels, From late tothe three barrels were approximately equal lighters length and from onwards a five barrel hinge was used. Some lighters made in also had the earlier 14 hole chimney. A 16 hole chimney was introduced in this year.

One final alteration is the screw used to hold the flint spring, I have found 2 dating of this screw, the most common is 6. So far, I have only found the larger one on lighters. Starting to look at the base stamps in detail, we see below 4 bases that at first glance appear very similar. By carefully aligning the lighters to a common Red base line we can start to zippo the small differences.

The red base line intersects the "I" in ZIPPO, to give us a common reference point, and by adding a second base line in blue we immediately notice the different spacing on all 3 lines.

How Old Is Your Zippo Lighter?

Please dating that both lines are straight - the slight curve on the blue line is an optical illusion! Another detail picture shows just how minor these differences can be. The two lighters below are both 3 barrel Short Centre hinged lighters, so can be dated by the hinge to In the image above this has been magnified 6.

When comparing two lighters side by side this difference would be almost imperceptible to the human eye as the actual difference lighters line 1 is 0. After months of research, and lots of emails, I think I am now somewhere close to dating these lighters.